Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Sleepers, Wake!

chris says:

ok, so the RA top DJs for '09 list fucking blows. it is frankly embarrassing. and please dont start with the 'taste is subjective blah blah argument'. ok, i dont expect everyone to like what i like, but that doesn’t mean that if you call a piece of shit a bar of gold, it is suddenly gold. it is still shit. you are just an idiot for thinking it is gold. anyway, should we be surprised the list sucks so fucking hard? no. of course not. the warning signs have been there. every month the aggregated top 50 tracks for RA have been simply horrible, and getting worse. in november, the king of stink - johnny D - is at number 1. yep. if that ain’t a big fucking red light, i don’t know what is. and the thing is, i actually think charts like these are a good thing. there is a real danger that from reading places like mnml ssgs, some of the other blogs and a selection of the features and reviews on RA and FACT that you get a really distorted view on the current state of the techno/electronic music scene. at the end of the day, most of the stuff we pump here ain’t that popular, these arent the artists being booked every weekend and playing at massive festivals. there definitely are signs of hope, but the mainstream still sucks balls.

2009 has been a great year for electronic music, but not because of most of the people listed in the RA charts. most of them are part of the problem, not the solution. so we need to keep fighting against the constant acceptance of mediocrity, and instead keep pushing and supporting quality music and quality artists.... like these:

chris' top 5:

1. function

2. donato dozzy

3. silent servant

4. peter van hoesen

5. scuba/scb

PC says:

Well, it’s rare that any kind of EoY poll elicits a visceral reaction from me, carrying around, as I do, Dirty Harry’s famous maxim: ‘opinions are like assholes… everyone’s got one.’

What’s fascinating (and a bit frightening) about this poll is that it is not the amplified projection of a small number of geeks and tastemakers; it is, rather, an accurate representation of what the people who voted think is hot now when it comes to DJing.

And what’s striking about this list in particular is how many of the people in this top 20 are DJs whose best sets are at least 5+ years behind them. That’s the thing that jumps out at me: the people I voted for are people who I think are really hitting their straps right now.

So is this a reflection of the contemporary? At this point, I have to wonder about people’s methodology when choosing their faves… were these cautiously chosen? Whittled down? Remembered from a millennium nightclub? What else could explain Luciano arriving at number three… in 2009? Seriously, this is an artist who released an interesting but very flawed album and has been playing, well, boring dishwater. This is a talented guy who – in my deeply personal/subjective/prejudiced opinion – has had one of the least productive and interesting years of his recent career. His productions are the worst they’ve been in ages; Cadenza is a shadow of its former self; his DJing has lost almost all of its funk, daring, passion and historicity – in short, this is a dude who spent 2009 playing bongo dishwater for dollars.

Leaving aside this one egregious howler, a look up the list reveals a startlingly high percentage of legacy votes: has beens, sentimental favourites, unexamined choices (or are they?). Sasha… and Digweed? Steve Bug? The Wighnomy Brothers?? Derrick May??? It’s not that these people aren’t good DJs, the question is whether they merit inclusion in a ‘best of 2009’ list… I’m left with a number of possible provisional conclusions: 1) people’s choices are – statistically – sentimental favourites based on past experiences; 2) large numbers of people’s listening tastes are way behind the curve (ie people are still listening to, and digging, the same shit they were digging three, five, hell, even ten+ years back & so this IS a fair representation of who’s hitting their straps right now) ; 3) it is I who lives in a parallel universe; 4) opinions are like assholes…

All year in interviews, producers, musicians, DJs and the like have been grousing about the rot (just check recent interviews by Jeff Mills and DJ Bone that we linked here a week or two back). The thing about the rot is that it is very hard to put your finger on... yeah, of course, you can have a vague feeling that things suck when you go out, that there are a lot of lame, bland records around, but is that the rot? After looking at this, I wanna say that the rot is a lot; the rot is.... very popular indeed.

70 comments:

sometimes you have to remember that "ahead of the curve" doesn't just mean "good music". the RA poll is the curve, and you and the artists you list are light years in front of it. and in 5 years, we'll probably be bitching about boring "artists" making boring copies of the records coming out right now...

everyone loves to view techno as a whole as "underground". but there's multiple circles of hell, and the ssgs (thankfully) cover the deepest of the deep (PUN). part of the reason I love this website is because you highlight the records that aren't for everyone...but that comes with a price...

none of this is an excuse for the shit artists on that poll, but the majority of people in the world will always have unsophisticated taste in art, and i've come to realize it just ain't worth getting hung up on. that's why places like mnmlssg exist...a haven for those who prefer the real underground. it might be lonely down here, but someone has to pave the way...

A point that isn't made in this post ( and in my asshole might be quite important ) is that listening and discovering music is an evolution, a learning process..

Since I'm only 19yo I experienced this whole thing recently and actually quite fast. I never met a guy who got out of bed one day, listened for example to sleeparchive or basic channel and realized that this kind of music is his passion.. In the last few years i went through different phases of cheap 'electro' ( don't shoot me for mentioning this term ), progressive house, chicago house, ... to end up where I'am now, being able to listen and enjoy all kinds of hard-to-understand music like ambient/idm/'mindfuck' techno.

The point I'm trying to make is that 99% of the people you meet walking on the street or buying bread at your local baker don't have this kind of dedication or stamina to get behind their laptops and check blogs/online musicshops/..., or go to a local recordshop and go cratedigging. In stead they see DJs play mainstream music in clubs that they think is underground and check charts of luciano or digweed on beatport.. This way people don't "succeed" in the learning process and are sitting like a dog waiting for a next weekend in the club with Richly or Tiesto! They remember the experience of the crowd going crazy when attending these events and they vote for those DJs. Kind of like sheep

I guess we have the dj mag voters barking at Britney Spears fans for being to commercial

The RA crowd booing on the dj mag voters for being to mainstream

ssgs/infinite state machine/"insert blog here" readers frowning upon the RA crowd for being to lowbrow

Is there an even more obscure website dissing your choices of Steffi, Function and Scuba?

The DJ Mag poll is what it is, so is the RA one (seemed to remember it being a bit less shit in the lasts years, but maybe Im just forgetting stuff).

It is funny how different the poll is is from the records getting great reviews on RA and the artists and labels getting featured there. But c'est la vie... Getting all angry about it and cussing it for not representing ones own taste and opinion is totally missing the point imo.

Also I think that defining your self as fighting in the name of "good taste" against "mediocrity" is an arrogant move. Stick to humbly and venerably representing the music you do like. The people who like Britney Spears, the Dj mag top 100 or the ra top 100 dj's aren't necessarily deluded or lost. Maybe they just genuinely like that stuff.

There's another factor too, which is that people's choices reflect the djs that they're exposed to. I can't personally comment on any of the choices you guys have made because I haven't heard any of those artists dj, ever. (and I don't think podcasts are generally representative of a dj's talent) I have, however, heard most of RA's top 20.

As for the DJ mag top 100, most of the people voting there don't seem to differentiate between djing and production, as evidenced by the presence of certain artists that are not at all djs.

@ karl: humility has never been a strong point of mine. i wrote my words very quickly, so perhaps they are not as careful as they'd normally be. but. but i do believe some music, djs and producers are better than others. and i do think electronic music can be better than what it currently is. and i'll push what i believe contributes to that.

@ mateo: bang on. this is why one of the RA podcasts have become so important. because of the exposure they bring. it also creates problems, though, as it puts a huge amount of power in RA's hands. for instance, did you notice that jan krueger said he had to do multiple mixes for RA? surely he should have more choice over what he presents?

@ Nyu: well, you are wise for 19, that's for sure - I totally agree with you. I started on some Rotterdam hardcore cassette, the Prodigy, Underworld and the Chemical Brothers as a way of trying to understand my way out of noise rock, so...

@ Karl: "It is funny how different the poll is is from the records getting great reviews on RA and the artists and labels getting featured there."

...yeah, mind the gap, huh? It's the disjunctures (and portals) between these parallel universes that I find really interesting... the whole process of opinionation that the commentariat is involved in is such a different project to what a lot of punters 'do' when they listen to and enjoy dance music.

...I think one thing I didn't mention is that the RA list is shot through with several different little public sphericules, this one included, all trumpeting their darlings and descrying their others... ...but this is productive, surely, as long as we know we're all out there... (and boy are 'they' out there)

...for me the shock was actually a reminder that I am in my happy bubble....but this is also good...

I like the RA podcasts to the Fabric mixes in the sense that they are almost like auditions: You are presenting what you think is your best to a critical, judgemental audience. Sadly, a lot of the mixes/podcasts aren't thought of as something special, but rather as a chore, or they don't have much thought put into them. Even though it was a 'user-generated' list, I know that many voters didn't really think about who to put down, so they put the obvious choices. Of course, we can't expect all RA readers to be sensitive, in-the-know music lovers; for every one of those there are a dozen mindless users who suffer from musical elbow and backside syndrome. My top picks were the people who enjoy what they do, and take the time to create sets and tracks that are special not because they feel they have to, but because they WANT to, and they like what they do. Heck, maybe some do feel they have to, if only to produce the one diamond in the coal seam, as it were.

I wonder how the happy little ssgs will react to the other polls. Especially the tracks of the year. If La Mezcla is number one I will drive my forehead through a wall.

@Chris: I just thought this post felt different in spirit than a lot of your stuff. While you and other bloggers here aren't (and shouldn't be) afraid of being critical, it shouldn't in my opinion be done in a preachy "i know best" vibe. Mostly I find you do present stuff here with the right balance, critical but fair, positive and negative in balance etc but this post sort of struck a wrong chord with me.

Off course some music is better than other, but what matters is how you voice and discuss your opinion. How you sketch it out, argue it and how your history backs it up imo.

my Steve Bug vote came from him being one of the few DJs I actually saw this year (I know, I must get out more) and certainly the best. opinions differ on him, I know, and even though he's probably not very 2009, I had to vote for at least one DJ that I actually saw. he's great and provided a very good set amidst some really terrible ones (for further reading, see our "Electric Zoo" roundup)

granted, i didn't really take this list so seriously, partly because i expected what happened. it's funny that some years ago i would still look at the dj mag top 100 and cringe (now i just remain blissfully unaware), and now i do the same with the RA poll. i think, as was said, that the breakdown between the critics and the majority of people is a very funny one.

i just wonder if the people putting richie at #1 read RA at all. when was the last positive review m_nus had (or, for that matter, the last review they had) on RA?

Please excuse my ignorance when it comes to this discussion, but it seems to me that this is a topic of conversation that I constantly hear among music lovers. My friends who are massively into Dub Step or Drum and Bass think that anything relating to EDM (Techno, Prog, Tech House, Min, etc.) is utter cheesy crap. I completely disagree, of course, but thats just their opinion. They are so hard core about it that they would give up going to an awesome, sunny beach party in Brazil with beautiful girls and happy people because they find people like Hernan, Digweed, Sasha, Dubfire, Luciano, etc. etc. all "cheesy". Music more than just sound. Its everything around it as well. Otherwise we would all be locked in our basements listening to "clicks" and "bops" and playing Warcraft in our PJs.

I actually don't remember my top 5. All I know is that Theo Parrish was number 1, and I also gave good marks to Surgeon, Levon Vincent, Maurice Fulton, Dixon, Omar-S, Steffi, Jus-Ed, and a few others. I was a bit more genre-reclusive this year.

i think that the dissappointment is in the fact that RA has definitely gotten much better in terms of the kinds of things it covers, yet the general user's taste is VERY VERY slow to change. i will say that there is a lot of good shit in that list, and i would be more forgiving of the worst examples (aka 90's prog deejays) if they were low on the list and some better cats were up higher.

i also have to say that the fact that 10% of the top 20 were black deejays is pretty disappointing as well. especially considering that one was Derrick May who (while still being a damn good deejay) is generally past his prime by a number of years and the other was Seth Troxler who is another cog in the hype machine. does anyone on the planet really think he is better than Theo Parrish or any number of actual Detroit deejays? ron trent is another fucking AMAZING deejay that has been consistent for far longer than even the "superstar" deejays, yet gets no love. this is still a problem for the ssgs guys as well, though they did get some latin cats in their lists. i just dont understand how almost all of the best deejays i've ever seen in my life has been black, yet there are so few on this list, especially near the top. it's really disappointing when you consider the fact that relatively underground cats like Dixon, Marcel Dettmann, and Ben Klock can get in there. where are the black people?!?!

there's definitely something to be said for voting for deejays that you saw this year. it would certainly make my list look different than it does. i left my top 5 sets of the year in RA's comments section, along with a list of the deejays i could think of off the top of my head that are awesome and got left off the list. at the same time, though, following a deejay you know from seeing live many times through mixes, live sets online, and shit like that shouldnt disqualify those guys from getting a vote. the problem is, i feel like most of these people are just "pulling the lever" for the obvious names that they think of when they think of other DJ polls. what a waste of time.

thank god we have blogs like this out there to actually know what the fuck is up and to get word out. people will catch up one day, by then we'll be onto even more new shit. these people will always be a day late and a dollar short.

and a couple comments:

"I never met a guy who got out of bed one day, listened for example to sleeparchive or basic channel and realized that this kind of music is his passion."

really? i was into deep drum and bass (aka not the typical shit out there) when i heard Basic Channel for the first time and it changed my life. i was 19 years old at the time.

"They are so hard core about it that they would give up going to an awesome, sunny beach party in Brazil with beautiful girls and happy people because they find people like Hernan, Digweed, Sasha, Dubfire, Luciano, etc. etc. all "cheesy"."

you wouldnt catch me dead anywhere near where those guys were playing, i dont care what the setting was.

I can understand some people not liking other genres of EDM. For example, I have never been able to get into Tiesto or any Trance for that matter, but I don't hate or criticize. Those guys do their thing, and they do it well. More power to them.

In terms on hating on Prog, I just think its a phase really. It may be a sound that isn't "pushing the boundaries" in terms of new music, but its still good music. Much like classic rock. You can't hate on Zeppelin, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, The Doors, just cause you like new "indie" rock stuff that introduces new sounds etc.

I think of myself as having a wide palate of music tastes, which may be considered "naive", but no one is gonna tell me that Sasha & Digweed are crap. I went to see minimal goddess Ida Engberg and then saw Sasha at a warehouse party later that same night and it was just no contest. I love Ida, but Sasha took it to another level.

Thats not to say that Sasha and Digweed deserve high spots on the RA rankings. The rankings should be on what they have achieved THIS YEAR, and there are a lot more DJs that have produced more. Having said that, the negative vibe towards prog studs like Satoshi T, Sasha, Diggers, Hernan, Nick Fanciulli, James Zabiela, etc. is all just cause people follow fads. Just like they followed the Minimal fad. Now its the techno fad. Good music is good music, regardless the genre or DJs.

"you wouldnt catch me dead anywhere near where those guys were playing, i dont care what the setting was."

why not?"

prob because pipecock can't get quality girls and would rather hang out in a dark basement in some warehouse with a bunch of male trendsters than a beach with smoking hot chicks listening to quality tunes.

@ Pipecock: *sigh* ...so what, are we supposed to choose people on the basis of colour?

So weird - like a strange combination of boosterist affirmative action and crypto racism...

...if SSGs have a creed it's just to put forth people whose music we like, REGARDLESS of race/ethnicity/gender etc...

...but anyway, I just broke a promise to myself by letting myself be drawn in, but I can't stay silent on this - it is bullshit.

@ Luis: I think the issue with prog is that it tended toward the very, very, very crass/bloated end of the hype spectrum, when superclubs in the late 90s were running glossy flyers and handing out laminates to street press hacks... gosh, those were different times... ...and I think that, for Australians and Brits, prog represented the worst of it, even as it also had a massive impact here, and was the 'gateway drug' to other (I would asshole) superior forms of music.

...I remember interviewing M Mayer and trying to hint that he'd gone prog, and he just didn't get it - it's not a major reference for German DJs I think...

...same thing as breaks and two step in Japan... it's like: 'who?'

..& @ all: in general I think I want to say that it is not as if there is A curve, there are multiple curves, and this is a good thing... I'm sincerely happy that Tiesto fans have a nice, well-run event to go to, AND that I don't have to got to it.

A healthy ecoystem supports lots of vaguely inter-related niches, no?

Also: thank you everyone for an amazingly respectful discussion so far. Turning anon comments off really has kept Fuck McFuck and his fucking Fucks away.... ...:)

The things about polls is that they only reflect the opinion of contributing users. and who contributes to polls like that? kids, n00bs, wannabees and trance fans. thos ewith a clue don't give a damn about polls.see crap rank lists like the mixmag DJ list (or whatever it's called) which works by DJ's spamming their "fans" (with homepage / myfacehonk profile messages, special promo mixes etc.) to vote for them.

brief:1. Tops with 100 are just useless. Methodologically, is the difference between position 65 and 72 the same as the difference between 32 and 39, or 1 and 8? Bullshit. I don't find it extremely useful. And since it is an aggregated poll, these are only pseudo-assholes, IMHO.

2. I am actually pretty fucking proud of myself that some of the DJ's or Labels that I prefer, are not TOP 10 in huge polls...it's just a great feeling to be different, right? :) Of course it may be well just elitist and shallow thinking.

3. There should be a top 100 best promoters, managers, agents as well. Maybe it would overlap with this list. They are doing a great job, some of the top artists aren't. Tell this to someone who has limited access to music and parties. Seeing once Luciano live (even if you are wasted) could bias your opinion, if this is the only input you have.

4. And a bit related to PC's comment...we should check the simple correlation: the more gigs a DJ has, the less (qualitative also) the record output, and the higher the the ranking...True, there are artists with big output and many gigs that are exceptions, maybe.

I can only assume everyone gets so worked up about these things because it's the first time they realise that an average cross-section of public taste will always be just that - average. The time we start defining our tastes by those we hate is the time we begin to sound like mad old bastards with chips on our shoulders.

It was the positivity and enthusiasm for new, thrilling sounds that first drew me to this blog from dance exile. Don't let the self-evident truth of the public's poxy taste spoil that, or the need most people have for comfortable consensus. I forever cherish Groucho's maxim of not wishing to be a part of any club that'd take him as a member.

Then again it's your blog, so I guess you can vent as bitterly as you wish.

wow, i guess i've been in a really long phase then. since i started listening to electronic music in fact! almost 14 years.....

"or is it just anyone who once was great but now its ok to hate on."

again, you're operating under the assumption that S&D were ever good. i find this to be very different from the reality of the situation. even the really old mixes i've heard by them were nothing i could even give a shit about if i tried.

"prob because pipecock can't get quality girls and would rather hang out in a dark basement in some warehouse with a bunch of male trendsters than a beach with smoking hot chicks listening to quality tunes."

hahaha, yeah that's exactly what it's like.

"I can just see them in their skinny jeans and horrible nerdy, big-framed glasses talking about how prog is so dead."

again, right on the money. are you guys spying on me?!

"@ Pipecock: *sigh* ...so what, are we supposed to choose people on the basis of colour?

So weird - like a strange combination of boosterist affirmative action and crypto racism...

...if SSGs have a creed it's just to put forth people whose music we like, REGARDLESS of race/ethnicity/gender etc..."

i'm really not trying to start a flame war about it, i was only pointing out this wide-spread issue, even amongst the "underground". most of the time i would chalk it up to people just now knowing any better because the hype machine does tend to favor white males especially.

exactly 13 out of 100 on the RA list were black folks, and i would argue that one of them doesn't really deserve to be on the list but got in on the hype machine long enough ago that they will continue to ride it out like the white guys (ladies and gentlemen, we present Carl Cox!!!). i guess that is true equality?

i know that there are cultural differences in dance music, and they have frustrated me in the past. but for it to continue even as black deep house music is possibly the main current movement is really dissapointing. shit, even a couple more latin guys like Santiago Salazar, Kenny Dope, or Little Louie Vega, or even some white guys like Danny Krivit would have made this list way more interesting. but even judging on big gigs and things like that, why aren't Joe Claussell, Ron Trent, and people like that on here? they play some of the biggest festivals in the UK, Japan, etc. i don't get it. these guys are not even as obscure as some of the upper parts of this list.

There are some really interesting points raised on this subject, and even though i dont agree with some of them, the fact that this blog exists to discuss them is commendable.

I think a major part of polls like this is who votes for them. We have ravers, producers, DJs, promotors, critics etc etc and each of those sub groups will have different opionions on the current state of electronic music and have different uses for that music.

For every one of us reading mnml ssgs, listening to hundrds of sets, contributing to forums, reseraching music, crate digging...you have hundreds more who simply enojoy techno on a more "entertaining" level. There is a big difference between going to see a DJ and having a lot of fun, and going to see a DJ and being crtitical/taken on a journey/understanding the significance of the records and its history or whatever else us geeks are apparently obsessed with.

I enjoy digging depper in to the underground but it will always be about passion. And for every trekkie, film buff, book geek there will be the mass that will enojy the mainstream. Is that a bad thing really?

By the way, what do people think about voting for DJs that they have only heard recorded sets of? And what about the difference between live sets and podcasts?

surely the issue here is, like mateo said, that people are voting on who they have seen rather than podcasts they've heard, which is fair enough. obviously recorded sets, rather than prepared podcasts, do reflect dj talent, but they have little evidence of the correlation between what the dj played and how it was experience by the crowd, or how well the dj was reading the crowd, or how it interacted with what the other djs that night were playing.

being a great dj is not just about making mind-bending sets, but knowing *exactly* what to play in the circumstance to suit, or challenge, or provoke the crowd. it's pretty difficult to hear a dj who simply gets the mood wrong, or gets carried away and tries to do too much when they're meant to be warming up. likewise treatment of soundsystems is a big deal - there are some djs who sound great in recorded sets but simply push soundsystems. on the other hand, the experience of a dj who just gets it completely right, even if it's not a set you might obsess over if you had downloaded it, is pretty special: this was the case when i saw john tejada at fabric back in january, and he just judged the space, the crowd, the soundsystem perfectly. i've never heard fabric room one sound that good, and you can tell when somebody who really knows their sound uses it.

so just logically, you can't expect people who aren't getting enormous bookings to come high up the list, and just because artists have had some highly regarded podcasts doesn't mean that people will vote for them. i don't think i'd vote for anyone i hadn't actually seen.

i hate to say it, pipecock, but the race card regarding the top 100 could probably be summarized simply by the fact that a vast majority of the people that are online voting on this stuff, and hell, i'd venture so far to say that a majority of the electronic music fanbase in general, are white kids. plain and simple.

i've had conversations with friends many times over how there's scant few black or hispanic people going to parties and events these days. hell, my one friend even bet the bouncer of one venue, a black man, that he couldn't find five black people in the entire venue, and the bouncer lost.

somewhere, deep in your rhetoric, you're looking for some affirmation that black or hispanic dj's are better than white dj's, and that's entirely unrealistic and ridiculous. hell, your entire shtick for the last decade or so was that black detroit dj's get no love, and we get it. you make it quite obvious in almost everything you present online.

but we're talking about a popularity poll here. a poll hinged around the fact that the retarded fans outweigh the smart ones. a poll comprised of mindless voting by kids with entirely too much time on their hands. if it were done by industry professionals and journalists, it would probably have a far different, more acceptable (to you) outcome. but the last time i checked, and this could be argued left and right by you i'm sure, is that, for the most part, the theo's and the omar's and the claussel's of the world, for as good as they are, play some music that 75% of the people out there would probably be annoyed by, and that doesn't exactly bode well for you being made number one on a chart composed solely of generic, palatable dj's.

you're a smart guy, thomas...but you really need to get over the fact that, as inferior as the entire world is to you, you're not the majority, and the majority will more than likely win every time.

"i've had conversations with friends many times over how there's scant few black or hispanic people going to parties and events these days. hell, my one friend even bet the bouncer of one venue, a black man, that he couldn't find five black people in the entire venue, and the bouncer lost."

this has more to do with the places you are going. in Pittsburgh where there ain't hardly shit going on it isn't like that. in fact, as a white guy playing house and techno i am in the minority amongst deejays here! and the crowds are definitely very mixed, finding 5 black people in a crowd of as few as 15 shouldn't be difficult. anytime i go anywhere in the US and go out, it is the same way if not the vast majority of the crowd being black depending on where i am at. this crowd represents on deephousepage and a few other smaller sites, and almost nowhere else online.

"somewhere, deep in your rhetoric, you're looking for some affirmation that black or hispanic dj's are better than white dj's, and that's entirely unrealistic and ridiculous."

i need no affirmation. nearly all of the best deejays i've seen have not been white guys. that's going back 14 years. it doesnt matter the genre, drum and bass, hiphop, reggae, disco, house, techno, electro. whatever. these guys get their crowds and their gigs and sales, but you never see much about them in the media.

"but the last time i checked, and this could be argued left and right by you i'm sure, is that, for the most part, the theo's and the omar's and the claussel's of the world, for as good as they are, play some music that 75% of the people out there would probably be annoyed by"

this is the disconnect. why would THEIR music be "annoying" but shit that Richie Hawtin or Villalobos does is not? is it the fact that those guys will play songs with vocals on them that sound like soul singers? they will certainly also play techno and house instrumentals, much better shit than those top 20 are playing.

let's put it this way: unless souless drug music is something to aspire to, i can understand how i don't like what Hawtin does but i do like what Omar-S does. But i can't fathom the opposite.

"you're a smart guy, thomas...but you really need to get over the fact that, as inferior as the entire world is to you, you're not the majority, and the majority will more than likely win every time."

i can't wait to see your smiling white face on that RA list in a couple years!

with regards to the whole seen out / heard live sets / heard podcasts thing, I'd like to point out that some (many?) of us live in small far away places that don't get visited by our favorite international dj's every week.

I guess I could have voted for the good and great local djs Ive seen in the last year but I didn't. So I voted for people who's sets Ive enjoyed in the past, or whose podcasts/live recordings I liked or even just dj's whose aesthetics or general approach to dj'ing I admire. So a lot of it had to do with podcasts, online radio, recorded club sets etc.

I'd also argue that your favorite dj could be a radio jock or a great mixtape maker. I mean, I probably listen to dj mixes outside of the live/nightclub context more than I do actually go out. Off course working a crowd and the soundsystem are big parts of being a dj, but other parts matter as well.

aren't you sometimes taking things out of context though? I mean how would you react if a German minimal hipster came along to your black and soulful Midwestern American parties and started asking "why aren't there more white people?", "why aren't there more white dj's", "How come they don't use abelton", "why aren't there more white noise breakdowns".

Surely you would think that his criticism was missing the point just as they would probably disregard your criticisms.

"I mean how would you react if a German minimal hipster came along to your black and soulful Midwestern American parties and started asking "why aren't there more white people?", "why aren't there more white dj's", "How come they don't use abelton", "why aren't there more white noise breakdowns"."

those guys would have more than enough parties like that to choose from in any given city. they could just go with Eric to any of the parties he goes to!

@ pipecock: in response to eric cloutier saying that the crowds aren't very mixed where he goes out you say:

"this has more to do with the places you are going. in Pittsburgh where there ain't hardly shit going on it isn't like that. in fact, as a white guy playing house and techno i am in the minority amongst deejays here! and the crowds are definitely very mixed, finding 5 black people in a crowd of as few as 15 shouldn't be difficult. anytime i go anywhere in the US and go out, it is the same way if not the vast majority of the crowd being black depending on where i am at."

what do you think about this hypothesis? the crowds are more mixed where you go out because there are more non-white djs where you go out. (you didn't say that you go places w/ more non-white djs in general, but just that there are more black djs in pittsburgh. but i wonder if, when you go out other places in the us, there are more non-white djs playing. if so, i'd be surprised if the fact that there are more mixed crowds where you go out wasn't caused by the fact that there are more non-white djs where you go out. non-whites tend to go out more to see non-whites perform, or so it seems plausible to think).

this hypothesis is supported by my (obviously idiosyncratic) experience. at parties in la i've been to where there are non-white djs, i believe thrown by a crew of mixed race, there are lots of latinos...and a much smaller percentage of blacks/latinos at other parties in la. when fred p and daniel bell played at the bunker in nyc a few weeks ago, there were way more black people than i've ever seen in that place (which i've been to more than 25 times, never before seeing a black dj play there). when the underground quality guys had the first show of their residency at love in ny a few weeks ago, the crowd was very mixed.

basically, just wondering what you think explains the differences in where you go out and where cloutier goes out. it seems pretty plausible to me (as a generalization) that if jus ed and fred p are playing somewhere, there's going to be way more of a mixed race than if daniel bell played by himself at that same place, even assuming that daniel bell will play a very similar style of music...soulful, incredible, etc. this generalization may not be true of pittsburgh, but it's probably true about new york (or at least the pocket of the scene i'm familiar with).

to pipecock....seeing as how its basically you against the world or something....

"or is it just anyone who once was great but now its ok to hate on."

"again, you're operating under the assumption that S&D were ever good. i find this to be very different from the reality of the situation. even the really old mixes i've heard by them were nothing i could even give a shit about if i tried."

I totally get if you don't like the music that s+d have played or do play or ever will play.

I hate to say it, but I quite enjoy liking music that the minority don't get. Where is the fun in having loads of music everyone else has heard of? ...last time I had some friends round, I handed my friend a stack of white lablels/ obscure releases before he left... They were a selection of what I thought techno represented at this moment, and hoped they would have a big unfluence upon him. I'm glad I wasn't in the position of handing over RAs top of the year – they were records, which while mainly went unoticed in the wider world, were amzazing examples of what happens when people aren't given harsh financial/commercial constrains. When I first started listening to electronic music, paul van dyk, laurent garnier and sven vath, were the the underground... You just have to keep digging deeper...

Mike do you realize there will always be some increased level of obscurity that you can get into? The statement "Where is the fun in having loads of music everyone else has heard of?" is one of the most elitist, insular things I have ever heard. If you legitimately believe this, I hope you dismiss mostly all rock and pop music as well. I do agree that not having financial or commercial constraints can allow for greater creativity, but seriously, nothing is inherently better because it is unheard of.

This almost isn't even worth saying, but the irony of this attitude is that you suggest people need to dig deeper, but going by your reason for listening to music, once they do, you will cease to like it yourself. Maybe this ivory tower standoffish attitude is partially what keeps people away from music like this.

exactly me too..i would be alot happier if i didnt have to beg some of my friends to go out, or try convince them its worth it..i missed shackleton 2-3 weeks ago because the reaction i got was: "fabric on a friday night??"anyway i should had gone alone

btw both mixes that donato dozzy made for mnml ssgs are just sensational. i didnt vote for him as i havent seen him yet...thats why i voted for who i voted... djs that blew me away this year... not podcasts or recorded sets that i heard...

@ Giorgio & Ewan: the tie in for me is that, yes, you might have to go to a horrible place like Fabric to see Shackleton or John Tejada in order to feel entitled to vote (by that logic) which is not only unappealing to me, but logistically very difficult - I live in Melbourne (and I am mostly diurnal these days).

...the reason I find it so hard to convince my friends to come out to a lot of events with me is related to the following:

1) it is expensive (especially once you factor in drinks and cab rides on top of the door charge)

2) it is stupid late (very often the person you wanna see comes on at 5am or something fucking ridiculous to anyone who is not on coke or some form of amphetamines)

3) most nightclubs SUCK if you are over 22 and/or not single and/or not on drugs

...2009 has been such a wonderful year for music, and there are so many interesting directions and 'venues' for sounds (blogs and podcasts being but one).

To me, the real howler is nightclubs and big festivals: they suck. The sound systems are awful, the tickets are expensive, and the crowd are ill-informed and off their tits. I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go.

...but I still love groove-based electronic music. So what am I supposed to do?

@PC: first off fabric is not a horrible place. its the most wonderful place on this horrible planet =).. you have to go on the right night though and the right time, after five am that is, when all the tourists and wankers have left.i dont even want to start on room 1's soundsystem. i simply haven't heard anything like it

but i get your points..it is expensive, most nightclubs and soundsystems suck, ppl too

what can you do? well sit home and listen to podcasts on a saturday night is not really my cup of tea.

Funnily enough I actually got to your hosting of the Scuba mix via a link within the RA's FB post for the top 100 dj list article! It's hardly worth getting worked up about - it's just another listing to me. I appreciate the time they took to write it. Heck I have been listening to Hot Flush since they launched many years ago but that's a certain sound, and possibly others are covering genres well that I've not yet investigated yet. It's all info pointing me in new directions, and it seems RA do it for the love? Didn't see corporate sponshorship other than a possible ad or two (or three) somewhere. BTW, Scuba mix sounding tasty indeed - eclectic bizness - respec'!

...well, I.... disagree... I think that basically the big festivals and the 20+ hour air commute sucks all the oxygen out of the Melbourne scene (so those are the two big over-riding factors)... but what are these 'good venues'?

Basically, there was extraordinary energy here by the late 90s, but the two crews who crossed over into the big were Hardware and Future: Hardware sucked, then imploded, when people got sick of coked up dicks on 3 decks... and future bloated and ate everything, and are now this weird branding/events/PR/marketing behemoth...

...where are these great clubs? To me there are almost no venues which aren't horribly compromised, or tainted by the past, fuckwits, dickhead bouncers/staff, bad soundsystems... I mean, where are these venues? The only ones that don't suck are live venues that give themselves over to electronic events.

...what Melbourne does have, and has had for a while, is very good DJs. Very good DJs. But the venues suck, mostly. My two cents.

from the friends of mine that have played anywhere in australia, and you basically already said it, its the super long flight that zaps them of much energy to perform well, and they're already deflated / defeated by the time they put on track number one.

which is why if i ever play in australia, there's definitely going to be a jetlag catch-up day involved.

I'm not surprised about the top dj list at RA, not at all. I would be more surprised if the djs and producers who actually deserve the top listings where at the top - and probably more angry since the feeling of knowing what I like would be a little bit less tangiable.

Wadsworth might seem an odd choice for a regular reader of this blog, but I saw him play in Galway a couple of months back and he played a lovely set of dubby house and techno. It came as a surprise to me cos I hadn't heard much from him and was frankly expecting to be bored stiff.

I think that the RA and DJ mag polls are a great thing. Just like the Lady GaGa's and Pussycat Dolls of this world, they remind us how bad music can be and how narrow minded the majority of people are (and always will be). It also makes me feel very lucky that I'm not a sheep and that everyday I get to listen to music that takes me places that most people never experience.

@PC. So did you frequent the infamous Teriyaki ? I've gathered that it was quite the scene. Yea I really am repulsed by most techno/house crowds and types I've met in melbourne. A real contrast to the potential wit, intelligence and sophistication of the central european, granted.

In the Red Bull music academy lecture with Derrick May (part of their brilliant lecture series) which was conducted in 2006 in Melbourne, he says at the end that he used to think that Melbourne was really a techno city - but that he watched from a distance the scene be trashed by inter-club politics and the like.

Venues? Maybe you're right. Djs? I couldn't say, but could you list/recommend some djs in melbourne that you regard highly?

@eric. Yea. I would say that we're doing pretty darn well for being at the end of the world, but we are still very much at the end of the world - and i've learnt time and time again, not to ever forget it !

As for being an international DJ - haha. You really can't just jetset to Australia in the same way you can do pretty much everywhere else (even to Japan from Europe or across the Atlantic, I'm sure). We are a LONG way away !

"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go...but I still love groove-based electronic music. So what am I supposed to do?"

... put on your own parties. hook up with like minded people, bring in the sound and start working it, girl ;)

I'm not saying it's easy, but it's certainly paid off in spades in the Sydney EDM scene, albeit more in the vein of warehouse disco parties rather than strictly techno shindigs (these seem to be ruled by the Kings X mafia, shudder), but a good party is a good party.

and my real vote goes to David Samner, Function as the current CHEF of techno right now!

(for paralysing me on the labyrinth festival with his live set, and putting a great smile on my mind, or you could say, a brain stimulation, every time-that means every day- i listen to his r.a podcast on my mp3 player, (i also listen lately- daily- to a set: Sandwell District @ Planet Rose Nijmegen 14.2.2009 and is fucking blowin my mind away..., but maybe someone else from S.D is playing on this)